We present an updated synthesis of the widely accepted 'single-arc Pacific-origin' and 'Yucatán-rotation' models for Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico evolution, respectively. Fourteen palaeogeographic maps through time integrate new concepts and alterations to earlier models. Pre-Aptian maps are presented in a North American reference frame. Aptian and younger maps are presented in an Indo-Atlantic hot spot reference frame which demonstrates the surprising simplicity of Caribbean-American interaction. We use the Müller et al. (Geology 21: 275-278, 1993) reference frame because the motions of the Americas are smoothest in this reference frame, and because it does not differ significantly, at least since c. 90 Ma, from more recent 'moving hot spot' reference frames. The Caribbean oceanic lithosphere has moved little relative to the hot spots in the Cenozoic, but moved north at c. 50 km/Ma during the Cretaceous, while the American plates have drifted west much further and faster and thus are responsible for most CaribbeanAmerican relative motion history. New or revised features of this model, generally driven by new data sets, include: (1) refined reconstruction of western Pangaea; (2) refined rotational motions of the Yucatán Block during the evolution of the Gulf of Mexico; (3) an origin for the Caribbean Arc that invokes Aptian conversion to a SW-dipping subduction zone of a trans-American plate boundary from Chortís to Ecuador that was part sinistral transform (northern Caribbean) and part pre-existing arc (eastern, southern Caribbean); (4) acknowledgement that the Caribbean basalt plateau may pertain to the palaeo-Galapagos hot spot, the occurrence of which was partly controlled by a Proto-Caribbean slab gap beneath the Caribbean Plate; (5) Campanian initiation of subduction at the Panama-Costa Rica Arc, although a sinistral transform boundary probably pre-dated subduction initiation here; (6) inception of a north-vergent crustal inversion zone along northern South America to account for Cenozoic convergence between the Americas ahead of the Caribbean Plate; (7) a fan-like, asymmetric rift opening model for the Grenada Basin, where the Margarita and Tobago footwall crustal slivers were exhumed from beneath the southeast Aves Ridge hanging wall; (8) an origin for the Early Cretaceous HP/LT metamorphism in the El Tambor units along the Motagua Fault Zone that relates to subduction of Farallon crust along western Mexico (and then translated along the trans-American plate boundary prior to onset of SW-dipping subduction beneath the Caribbean Arc) rather than to collision of Chortis with Southern Mexico; (9) Middle Miocene tectonic escape of Panamanian crustal slivers, followed by Late Miocene and Recent eastward movement of the 'Panama Block' that is faster than that of the Caribbean Plate, allowed by the inception of east-west trans-Costa Rica shear zones. The updated model integrates new concepts and global plate motion models in an internally consistent way, and can be used to test and guide more local ...

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A Permo‐Triassic reconstruction of western Pangea (North America, South America, Africa) is proposed that is characterized by (1) definition of the North Atlantic fit by matching of marginal offsets (fracture zones) along the opposing margins, (2) a South Atlantic fit that is tighter than the BuIlard fit and that is achieved by treating Africa as two plates astride the Benue Trough and related structures during the Cretaceous, (3) complete closure of the Proto‐Atlantic Ocean between North and South America, accomplished by placing the Yucatan block between the Ouachita Mountains and Venezuela, (4) a proposed Hercynian suture zone that separates zones of foreland thrusting from zones of arc‐related magmatic activity; to the northwest of this suture lie the Chortis block and Mexico and most of North America, and to the southeast lie South America, the Yucatan Block, Florida and Africa, and (5) satisfaction of paleomagmatic data from North America, South America, and Africa. Beginning with the proposed reconstruction, the relative motion history of South America with respect of North America is defined by using the finite difference method. Within the framework provided by the proposed relative motion history, an evolutionary model for the development of the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean region is outlined in a series of 13 plate boundary reconstructions at time intervals from the Jurassic to the present. The model includes (1) formation of the Gulf of Mexico by 140 Ma, (2) Pacific provenance of the Caribbean plate through the North America‐South America gap during Cretaceous time, (3) Paleocene‐Early Eocene back arc spreading origin for the Yucatan Basin, whereby Cuba is the frontal arc and the Nicaragua Rise‐Jamaica‐Southern Hispaniola is the remnant arc, and (4) 1200 km of post‐Eocene cumulative offset along both the Northern and Southern Caribbean Plate Boundary Zones, allowing large‐scale eastward migration of the Caribbean plate with respect to the North and South American Plates.

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A detailed model for the evolution of the Gulf of Mexico, the Bahamas and the Proto‐Caribbean is built within the framework provided by a detailed initial Alleghenian (western Pangean) reconstruction and an accurate subsequent relative‐motion history between North America and Gondwana (northern Africa and South America). The Alleghenian reconstruction closes all pre‐Jurassic oceans; accounts for Jurassic attenuation of continental crust by restoring that attenuation to original prerift continental thicknesses; incorporates an improved Equatorial Atlantic fit between northern Brazil and the Guinea margin of Africa; quantitatively removes changes in shape of northern South America due to Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic accretion and internal deformation; includes pre‐Mesozoic continental crust presently underlying the western Bahamas and southern Florida; and correlates Late Paleozoic geology of Yucatan with its neighboring continental masses. Extension occurred within the Gulf of Mexico from Late Triassic to earliest Cretaceous time, but seafloor spreading was delayed until the Late Callovian. This divided a single Gulf‐wide salt basin into the Louann and Campeche salt provinces. The Yucatan block progressively rotated about 43 degrees counterclockwise away from the Texas‐Louisiana margin around a pole in northern Florida. The Tamaulipas‐Golden Lane‐Chiapas fault zone of eastern Mexico is interpreted as the remains of an initially intracontinental transform system along which Yucatan migrated. Attenuated continental crust beneath southern Florida and the western Bahamas, termed here the Florida Straits block, migrated approximately 300 km out of the eastern Gulf, approximately along Central Atlantic flow lines. These rotations are consistent with recently suggested magnetic anomaly trends in the Gulf of Mexico (Shepherd et al., 1982; S. Hall, personal communication, 1984). The Proto‐Caribbean formed synchronously by a fan‐like rotation of Yucatan away from Venezuela.

The American margins of the Caribbean comprise basins and accreted terranes recording a polyphase tectonic history. Plate kinematic models and reconstructions back to the Jurassic show that Mesozoic separation of the Americas produced passive margins that were overridden diachronously from west to east by allochthonous Caribbean plate-related arc and oceanic complexes. P-T-t and structural data, sedimentary provenance, and basin-subsidence studies constrain this history. Caribbean lithosphere is Pacifi c-derived and was engulfed between the Americas during their westward drift as the Atlantic Ocean opened. This began ca. 120 Ma with development of a west-dipping Benioff zone between Central America and the northern Andes, now marked by the Guatemalan and Cuban sutures in North America and by the northern Colombian and Venezuelan "sutures" of South America, persisting today as the Lesser Antilles subduction zone. Most Caribbean high-pressure metamorphic complexes originated at this subduction zone, which probably formed by arc-polarity reversal at an earlier west-facing Inter-American Arc and was probably caused by westward acceleration of the Americas. The mainly 90 Ma Caribbean basalts were extruded onto preexisting Caribbean crust ~30 m.y. later and are not causally linked to the reversal. The Great Caribbean Arc originated at this trench and evolved up to the present, acquiring the shape of the preexisting ProtoCaribbean Seaway. The uplift and cooling history of arc and forearc terranes, and history of basin opening and subsidence, can be tied to stages of Caribbean plate motion in a coherent, internally consistent regional model that provides the basis for further studies.

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We present a series of 14 updated tectonic reconstructions for the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean region since the Jurassic, giving due attention to plate kinematic and palinspastic accuracy. Primary elements of the model are: 1) a re-evaluation of the Mesozoic break-up of Pangea, to better define the Proto-Caribbean passive margin elements, the geology and kinematics of the Mexican and Colombian intra-arc basins, and the nature of the early Great Caribbean Arc; 2) pre-Albian circum-Caribbean rock assemblages are reconstructed into a primitive, west-facing, Mexico-Antilles-Ecuador arc (initial roots of Great Caribbean Arc) during the early separation of North and South America; 3) the subduction zone responsible for Caribbean Cretaceous HP/LT metamorphic assemblages was initiated during an Aptian subduction polarity reversal of the early Great Arc; the reversal was triggered by a strong westward acceleration of the Americas relative to the mantle which threw the original arc into compression; 4) the same acceleration led to the Aptian-Albian onset of back-arc closure and "Sevier" orogenesis in Mexico, the western USA, and the northern Andes, making this a nearly hemispheric event which must have had an equally regional driver; 5) once the Great Caribbean Arc became east-facing after the polarity reversal, continued westward drift of the Americas, relative to the mantle, caused subduction of Proto-Caribbean lithosphere (which belonged to the American plates) beneath the Pacific-derived Caribbean lithosphere, and further developed the Great Arc; 6) Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous, "Pacific-derived", Caribbean ophiolite bodies were probably dragged and stretched (arc-parallel) southeastward during the Late-Jurassic to Early Cretaceous along an [Aleutian-type] arc spanning the widening gap between Mexico and Ecuador, having originated from subduction accretion complexes in western Mexico; 7) a Kula-Farallon ridge segment is proposed to have generated at least part of the western Caribbean Plate in Aptian-Albian time, as part of the plate reorganisation associated with the polarity reversal; 8) B" plateau basalts may relate to excessive Kula-Farallon ridge eruptions or to now unknown hotspots east of that ridge, but not to the Galapagos hotspot; 9) a two-stage model for Maastricthian-early Eocene intra-arc spreading is developed for Yucatán Basin; 10) the opening mechanism of the Grenada intra-arc basin remains elusive, but a north-south component of extension is required to understand arc accretion history in western Venezuela; 11) Paleocene and younger underthrusting of Proto-Caribbean crust beneath the northern South American margin pre-dates the arrival from the west of the Caribbean Plate along the margin; 12) recognition of a late middle Miocene change in the Caribbean-North American azimuth from E to ENE, and the Caribbean-South American azimuth from ESE to E, resulted in wholesale changes in tectonic development in both the northeastern and southeastern Caribbean plate boundary zones.